In vitro diagnostics (IVD) allows labs to assist in the diagnosis of disease based on assays performed on patient fluid samples. IVD includes various types of analytical tests and assays typically conducted with automated clinical chemistry analyzers (analyzers) onto which fluid containers, such as tubes or vials containing patient samples, have been loaded. The analyzer extracts a fluid sample from the vial and combines the sample with various reagent fluids (reagents) in special reaction cuvettes or tubes (referred to generally as reaction vessels).
In some conventional systems, reagent inventory on analyzers is provided using wedge-shaped reagent containers (containers) arrayed in storage areas, such as a circular server assembly (server). The containers are held in slots within the circular server. The wedge-shape allows for an efficient utilization of reagent storage volume so that the maximum number of containers can be stored on board the analyzer and the maximum test menu may be available to the user. Reagents are typically packaged in different wedge-shaped containers such as low volume, mid-volume, and high volume depending on reagent stability and method use rate. The reagent containers typically have threaded necks for closure and are opened by removing a threaded closure and loaded into the servers manually. New containers are opened and manually loaded as analyzer.